
Butter
A Novel of Food and Murder
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Narrated by:
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Hanako Footman
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By:
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Asako Yuzuki
About this listen
The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer, and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story
There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine.
Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in the Tokyo Detention House convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, whom she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew, and Kajii can’t resist writing back.
Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a master class in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii, but it seems that Rika might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body. Do she and Kajii have more in common than she once thought?
Inspired by the real case of a convicted con woman and serial killer—the “Konkatsu Killer”—Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance, and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.
©2024 Asako Yuzuki (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it. A restless retail assistant looks to gain new skills, a mother tries to overcome demotion at work after maternity leave, a conscientious accountant yearns to open an antique store, a recently retired salaryman searches for newfound purpose. In Komachi’s unique book recommendations they will find just what they need to achieve their dreams.
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The power of honesty and an open mind
- By ili pika on 09-10-23
By: Michiko Aoyama
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The Night of Baba Yaga
- By: Akira Otani, Sam Bett - translator
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 3 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Tokyo, 1979. Yoriko Shindo, a workhorse of a woman who has been an outcast her whole life, is kidnapped and dragged to the lair of the Naiki-kai, a branch of the yakuza. After she savagely fends off a throng of henchmen in an attempt to escape, Shindo is only permitted to live under one condition: that she will become the bodyguard and driver for Shoko Naiki, the obsessively sheltered daughter of the gang’s boss.
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Good Quick Read but Lacked Advertised Queer Romance
- By This is unfortunate because I really love almost everything about this product. I really need to listen to white noise to sleep and this seemed like a perfect way to do it. The headband fit comfortable and the speakers were clear and worked well..... For a very short time. Not long after a week of usage the device no longer charges. It is essentially useless. I really wanted to like this but because on 09-22-24
By: Akira Otani, and others
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Paradise Rot
- A Novel
- By: Jenny Hval, Marjam Idriss - translator
- Narrated by: Brie Jackman
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Jo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. In a house with no walls, shared with a woman who has no boundaries, she finds her strange home coming to life in unimaginable ways. Jo's sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh.
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Wrong Voice
- By Orville on 08-18-24
By: Jenny Hval, and others
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Mina's Matchbox
- A Novel
- By: Yoko Ogawa, Stephen B. Snyder - translator
- Narrated by: Nanako Mizushima
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt’s family. Tomoko’s aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home—and handsome foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company—are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens and even an old zoo where the family’s pygmy hippopotamus resides.
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Very Enjoyable
- By unco on 09-03-24
By: Yoko Ogawa, and others
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The Lantern of Lost Memories
- By: Sanaka Hiiragi
- Narrated by: Hanako Footman
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of the peculiar and magical photo studio owned by Mr. Hirasaka, a collector of antique cameras. In the dimly lit interior, a paper background is pulled down in front of a wall, and in front of it stands a single, luxurious chair with an armrest on one side. On a stand is a large bellows camera. On the left is the main studio; photos can also be taken in the courtyard. Beyond its straightforward interior, however, is a secret. The studio is, in fact, the door to the afterlife, the place between life and death where those who have departed have a chance—one last time.
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Quiet, magical feels...a bit like Harry
- By SHES4AMWF on 03-18-25
By: Sanaka Hiiragi
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All the Lovers in the Night
- By: Mieko Kawakami
- Narrated by: Mirai
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copyeditor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyoku stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it.
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Enjoyable listen
- By Rose on 05-16-22
By: Mieko Kawakami
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Tokyo Ueno Station
- A Novel
- By: Yu Miri, Morgan Giles
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest, doomed to haunt the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo.
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Goods story, great translation, poor narration
- By Rose on 12-04-20
By: Yu Miri, and others
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Audition
- By: Ryu Murakami, Ralph McCarthy - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the resumes pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention - Yamasaki Asami - a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. But she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be.
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Adequate?
- By Evan Runyon on 01-04-22
By: Ryu Murakami, and others
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The Housekeeper and the Professor
- By: Yoko Ogawa
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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He is a brilliant math professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only 80 minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young housekeeper - with a 10-year-old son-who is hired to care for the professor. And every morning, as the professor and the housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them.
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The Wonder Of Kindness & Connection
- By Sara on 06-16-16
By: Yoko Ogawa
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Life Ceremony
- Stories
- By: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller, Jeena Yi, Nancy Wu, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness.
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Excelente calidad
- By Anonymous User on 06-23-25
By: Sayaka Murata
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Earthlings
- A Novel
- By: Sayaka Murata
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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As a child, Natsuki doesn’t fit into her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut who has explained to her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth.
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Intriguing but disturbing
- By C. Parham on 01-01-21
By: Sayaka Murata
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Convenience Store Woman
- A Novel
- By: Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 3 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Keiko Furukura is thirty-six, and she has been happily working at a Tokyo “Smile Mart” for eighteen years, fitting in by copying her colleagues’ dress and mannerisms, playing the part of a “normal person” excellently—more or less. But her packaged idyll is threatened by mounting pressure to find a husband and a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action to protect her peaceful world.
By: Sayaka Murata, and others
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The Devotion of Suspect X
- By: Keigo Higashino, Alexander O. Smith Translated by
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother who thought she had finally escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day to extort money from her, threatening both her and her teenaged daughter Misato, the situation quickly escalates into violence and Togashi ends up dead on her apartment floor.
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not really like Larsson -- but that's OK
- By connie on 02-04-11
By: Keigo Higashino, and others
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Your Utopia
- Stories
- By: Bora Chung, Anton Hur - translator
- Narrated by: Greta Jung
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In “The Center for Immortality Research,” a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors, only to be blamed for a crime she witnessed during the event, under the noses of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. But she can’t be fired—no one can. In “One More Kiss, Dear,” a tender, one-sided love blooms in the AI-elevator of an apartment complex; as in, the elevator develops a profound affection for one of the residents.
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Innovative and imaginative short stories
- By Bethany B. on 09-07-24
By: Bora Chung, and others
The narrators voice
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Interesting look at societal pressure in Japan
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The toast she makes at the turkey dinner could have been summed up with “Thsnks to Manako Kaji opening a curiosity in me about food, it has also helped me find all of you!”.
Rice with butter and soy is a taste revelation!
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enjoyable, subtly feminist, read
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A bit hard to follow
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Quite a journey, loved and hated at times
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Did anyone else
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Story with Depth
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Incredible
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Tale of female oppression and how indulgence is a form of liberation
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